Writer Groupie Podcast brings you discussions, insights, and insider details on planning, producing, promoting, and profiting as a writer.

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Good day, Writer Groupies! I am doing a flyby episode today in hopes that I am going to slowly get back to my podcast schedule. I think most of you know that my hubby is my producer and he has been in the hospital and unable to help me out for some time now.

At any rate, he will be able to direct me to do the production work soon, so we can get back to business! If you are a former guest, or one that I have had to cancel, I will be in touch to reschedule soon!

Today, I want to discuss a subject that is subjective, depending on what your preferences are, and I am certainly NOT trying to sway you one way or another. But, it’s about websites for authors and whether we still need them or not, and whether what we put on one is complex or simple.

What got me on the subject today was seeing a nice book cover on Facebook and following the links to see the book on Amazon-you know me, I love good book covers – and if you need one designed will be happy to do that for you- but I digress.

This book, a romance, was ranking on Amazon moderately, and I wanted to know more about the author. I always think about possible podcast guests. So, I tried and tried to find the author’s website. And there is not one. The author is exclusively on Amazon, Facebook, Twitter and Goodreads.

This made me sit back on my heels a little.

Are websites now no longer needed for an author?  Do we as consumers no longer desire to see the author’s creds and other items? This author only had the one book so maybe she will get a site up once she gets another one ready to go. I also tried to hunt down her publishing company and found nothing that matched exactly so suspect that she is using her own publishing information as I do with MKS Books. This is a common thing with indies.

But I have heard more than once that you should have a website, even a one page site. It’s just the norm. But I am seeing more and more indies going to a social media experience for their platform. I think in a way, that is an okay thing to do. I mean, where did I find this author? On Facebook!

So, it bears repeating…are websites going by the wayside? I find myself going less and less to sites for my information gathering…even of big companies. Now, yes, we all shop online and those sites are frequented quite heavily. But for an author? Or a book? Is it possible now to do away with a website?

When I visited the sites of two of my favorite authors, I found sites filled with info about their book tours and covers and links to their books (current books being sold—not really backlist) and nothing else. I suspect these NYT bestsellers are far too busy out in the world promoting to be worrying with blogging or any of that and likely have author assistants who do their sites.

But, if you have a site…what is necessary? For a long time, it was simply a placeholder for your image and bio and book covers and links. Then sites went the way of blogs and everyone felt the need to post blog posts daily or so…but I am seeing a whole lot of defunct blogs now because we are all very, very busy people and don’t have time to write out a long tirade. And even less time to read one. So, I think it is safe to say that blogging at least on a website is really sort of a dead thing.

And if the authors that I visited are any indication, sites may be going back to the placeholder days.

Either way, a website is in my opinion, an expense that an author just getting started could do without. I think they may well get more mileage from social media places. Eventually as they publish more and more books they will want a site.

What do you think?

Please feel free to comment. I would love to hear what you think.

Thanks for listening! You can find show notes, contact form, and more at http://www.writergroupie.net

You can find out more about Kim Smith at http://www.kimsmithauthor.net